Truth: God’s Love is Different than the World’s Love
One of the things that I frequently talk about on the podcast is the difference between God’s love and the love we’ve experienced in the world.
(Even if the best love in the world doesn’t compare to the love that God has for us.)
What makes it even more challenging is when we come from abuse and toxic relationships - especially if those involved were people that we looked to for safety and love. Like our parents, for example.
It can be really difficult to recognize God’s love, first of all. We’ve been taught that love - at least for us - isn’t a real thing. “Love” equals abuse, hurt, survival mode, etc.
This is something that I personally understand. I grew up with abusive parents. As an adult, I’ve had toxic relationships. I’ve worked in highly toxic workplaces.
And when that’s been your life experience, it’s a challenge to then see God for who He truly is. It’s a challenge to understand that He loves you for yourself. Not for what you do, or what you produce, or how “perfect” you are. But because that’s just who He is. He just loves you!
On top of that, it can also be a challenge to trust that God’s love is reliable. Because that’s not what you’ve been taught, right?
Unbiblical teaching has taught you that you need to earn His love through works, a lack of sin, or checking off items on a list.
Abusive and toxic relationships have taught you that love is conditional, transactional, and fleeting. And, in some cases, made to feel like it’s all up to you.
That’s not how God’s love works - at all. God’s love is unconditional, constant, and always present.
In other words, God’s love is not only the kind of love that you’ve been yearning for - it’s also the most reliable love that you’ll ever experience.
How is that possible? And how can you easily remind yourself of the reliability of His love as you’re working on absorbing that truth over time?
We can answer both of these questions by equipping you with a three-step filter that you can use anytime you need to remind yourself that God’s love is different from the world’s.
1. God’s Love is Holy (Because He is Holy)
You’ll find that I mention God’s holiness often on the show because it’s such a vital component of His character.
It’s not something that’s commonly talked about in religious, work-based circles because it doesn’t align well with the false picture of a demanding, cruel, harsh God.
And even in solid Christian churches, the definition of this word gets lost despite its common use.
So what does it mean to be holy?
To be holy means to be 100% set apart from all evil and wickedness - which includes sin and ill intentions.
Only God is holy.
In Revelation 15:4 (NLT) we read, “Who will not fear you, Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous deeds have been revealed.” [Emphasis mine.]
Psalm 99:9 (NLT) says, “Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy mountain in Jerusalem, for the Lord our God is holy!”
Humans, on the other hand, are NOT holy.
Because of what happened back in the Garden of Eden - with sin released into the world - we are born broken and bent towards sin.
In Psalm 51:5 (NLT), the author (King David) says, “For I was born a sinner—yes, from the moment my mother conceived me.”
Sinfulness is an internal state that’s present from conception.
The only way we can be freed from that state is through Jesus. (Something that’s too in-depth to cover in this episode.)
But even when we’re freed from the power of sin, we’re still imperfect. God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit will help us to heal and grow more like God as we journey with Him. But we’re never going to be holy like God is.
Even the best, most God-like human love will always pale in comparison to God’s love. It doesn’t mean that such love can’t be mostly safe, healthy, and unconditional. That it can’t be a love that we can trust and bask in.
But it does mean that God’s love will always be better. Because it will always be perfect, unconditional, and 100% free of any malice and ill intentions. Because God Himself is 100% set apart from evil.
We won’t always understand what God is doing and why; but because we know that God’s holiness is a fundamental, never-changing part of His character, we can rest assured knowing that His love never, ever has ill intentions.
It’s also not about who we are or what we do - it’s about who God is.
Which means His love is always present and reliable.
2. God’s Love is Unfailing
This truth ties into God’s holiness - as well as other character attributes.
But the big idea here is that God’s love is steadfast.
Unlike the love of the world, which can be transactional or fickle or inconsistent (i.e., here one day and gone the next), God’s love never fails.
We see this throughout the Bible, both in specific scriptures and the historical accounts of God staying true to His people even when they’d turned their backs on Him.
Jeremiah 31:3 (NLT) says: Long ago the Lord said to Israel: “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.”
Psalm 100:5 (NLT): “For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.”
Psalm 36:7 (NLT): “How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.”
Psalm 109:26 (NLT): “Help me, LORD my God; save me according to your unfailing love.”
Again, we’re not always going to understand what God is doing or why He’s doing certain things. (I’ve recently been in a season that was a prime example of this.)
But the important thing is to view the world through the lens of God’s character - not the other way around.
God is holy and He’s unchanging. His character was the same yesterday, as it is today, as it will be tomorrow.
As a result, His love will always be present, steadfast, and reliable.
Unlike imperfect, broken, wounded, and sinful humans - who are living together in a broken world - God will never fail. In fact, He’s incapable of doing so.
3. God’s Love is Everlasting
Something that’s “everlasting” is eternal. It exists forever.
This is actually one of God’s attributes. Only God is eternal. We can spend eternity with Him moving forward, but only God has existed from the very beginning. Meanwhile, we’ve all been born into existence at some point.
Because God is eternal; and His character never changes; and He’s holy; and He doesn’t just feel love as an emotion but actually is love (as I John 4:8 tells us), God’s love is therefore eternal.
In fact, His love for us actually existed before He created the world. Not just before we were born, but before the world we were born into even existed!
In Ephesians 1:4-5 (NLT) we read, “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ…. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.”
We can trust and rely on God’s love because it’s always been present - and it will always be.
God didn’t create us and then decided to love us occasionally. God fully loved us - with a holy, steadfast love - before we even existed. (If there was ever a strong argument against His love depending on our actions or works, this is definitely one of them!)
Again, it all comes back to God’s character.
